With friends like Israel &#x2026;

If you travel to Arab countries on a passport as seemingly innocuous as one bearing the Australian coat of arms, some security authorities will still suspect you of working for Israel.

Such is the justified paranoia of some Arab countries about the ruthless efficiency of the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, with its skill at fabricating agents' identities and the inventiveness it lends to killing enemies of the Jewish state.

As an Arab guide told me while I was in his country: "Here the authorities assume that every stranger is an Israeli spy."

Now that Mossad has been accused of stealing the passport identities of three Australian citizens for use in a political assassination, I'll be prepared for a tougher grilling than usual next time I visit Syria, Lebanon and certainly Hamas-controlled Gaza.

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I'll also be a little more wary next time an Israeli military official at a West Bank checkpoint, at the Erez Crossing into Gaza or at the Allenby Bridge from Jordan, wanders into a back office with my passport in hand before returning it half an hour later.

I've been to Israel many times. I like its people, Arab and Jewish.

As someone who acknowledges Israel's right to exist, I also accept its right to defend its borders. Perhaps only when you travel through the Middle East enough, do you come to appreciate the intensity and depth of the hatreds that require it to be so vigilant.

I do not consider it contradictory that I also have reservations about Israel's conduct during the invasions of Gaza and Lebanon, and its occasional excesses in the West Bank. So, too, do many Israelis.

Until just a few years ago the pro-Western United Arab Emirates had been known to turn away foreigners if their passports had been stamped in Israel. Certainly, in Syria and Lebanon that remains a strict policy today. It is a largely symbolic act whereby anybody whose passport carries the Israeli stamp is seen to be acknowledging a state whose legitimacy Syria and Lebanon challenge and despise.

It is also part of a ridiculous charade, whose participants include seasoned Middle East travellers, immigration officials and the military.

The experienced will never try to enter Syria or Lebanon, perhaps even Jordan or the UAE, with a passport bearing an Israeli stamp. If they have been to Israel, they will have made other passport arrangements for their travels to the Arab states.

Similarly, they know to expect the question: "Have you ever been to Israel."

There is, of course, a correct answer: "No - only Palestine."

There is also a correct answer to the Israeli immigration official who asks if you intend to visit the West Bank or Gaza during your stay. Or the Israeli soldier at the checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel who demands to know, while staring at your Arab driver, if you've had meetings with any Arabs while in Palestine.

During a recent trip to the Middle East to research the movements of the Australian light horsemen during World War I, a member of our travelling party was found to have the Israeli stamp in his passport. The Lebanese border guards expelled him immediately, sending him back through the demilitarised zone into Syria where he had to take his chances with the local authorities.

We returned to Damascus a few days later, whereupon we were warned that - probably due to our acquaintance's misadventure - we, too, had come to the attention of the security authorities. We were watched and followed.

That's all it takes.

So, now that fake Australian passports have been used in the assassination in Dubai of the Hamas militant, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, probably, it seems, by Mossad agents, there is likely to be much greater scrutiny of Australians travelling in the Middle East.

Others in the group of suspected killers travelled on fraudulent British, Irish, French and German passports. It is instructive, perhaps, that they saw fit not to steal the identity of anyone from America and risk enraging Israel's greatest ally.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith - both great "friends" of the Jewish state - are right to be seething with anger at what appears to be Mossad's blithe implication of Australia in the Hamas militant's assassination.

They have demanded answers which Israel will never give them. But critically, they have, quite appropriately, put Australia's very close relationship with Israel on the line.

But it took a former Palestinian representative to Australia, Ali Kazak, to succinctly spell out the consequences of Mossad's actions - if, indeed, Mossad is responsible.

"What Mossad is doing is endangering every single Australian," said Kazak, who has previously warned Canberra that the Israeli spy agency was using forged Australian passports.

He is right. Australians travelling in parts of the Middle East would do well to be very wary.